August 17th, 2018

Before I approached agents, I worked on my first page until my eyes were bleeding; until the mere sight of it made me want to puke. I read hundreds of first pages and analysed them, trying to work out what made them good or bad – what made me either desperate to turn the page or happy to put the book aside. I must have re-written the first page of my book about a hundred times, and yet still when I read it now, I think it could be better.

So I thought readers might be interested in a distillation of my conclusions about what makes a good first page. I’ve also discussed these with my brilliant agent, Diana Beaumont, and she agrees. Get these things right and an agent will probably at least make it to page 2 of your manuscript! Read the rest of this entry »